


between frames

by everytuesday



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Episode Tag, Friendship, M/M, Missing Scene, cellmates to friends to lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-02-23 12:07:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23711251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everytuesday/pseuds/everytuesday
Summary: archie+munroe episode codas/missing scenesMunroe looks up from his book, blinking a few times, and Archie thrusts the scrap of paper clutched in his hand toward him. There’s a phone number scrawled across it. Munroe isn't sure what he was expecting, but it wasn't that.“I thought about what you said about survival. I don’t know if I can do ‘whatever it takes’. I don’t know if I can be that, so if anything happens to me, can you try to tell my family? Just so they know the truth of-- of whatever happened, not what the warden tells them.” Archie’s breath hitches on the last few words. He’s trying not to sound frightened, but nothing short of absolute terror would’ve brought him to the point of asking some guy he barely knows to pass on a message to his family if he doesn’t make it.
Relationships: Archie Andrews/Munroe "Mad Dog" Moore
Comments: 7
Kudos: 14





	between frames

Archie has been fiddling with a piece of paper he tore out of a notebook for the last ten minutes. He scribbled something first, then started folding and unfolding it nonstop. Archie clearly wants him to take on the burden of starting the conversation. Munroe sticks his nose in a battered copy of some Chuck Palahniuk novel and refuses to look up, forcing Archie to give in and cross the short distance between their cots to stand over Munroe.

“Hey, um.”

Munroe looks up from his book, blinking a few times, and Archie thrusts the scrap of paper clutched in his hand toward him. There’s a phone number scrawled across it. Munroe isn't sure what he was expecting, but it wasn't that.

“I thought about what you said about survival. I don’t know if I can do ‘whatever it takes’. I don’t know if I can _be_ that, so if anything happens to me, can you try to tell my family? Just so they know the truth of-- of whatever happened, not what the warden tells them.” Archie’s breath hitches on the last few words. He’s trying not to sound frightened, but nothing short of absolute terror would’ve brought him to the point of asking some guy he barely knows to pass on a message to his family if he doesn’t make it.

Munroe wants to tell him that nothing is going to happen to him, but he knows that isn’t true. He’s seen at least a few kids from the fighting ring leave in body bags and Archie-- Archie is built like a freight train and has that small town kid naiveté that the sick fuckers who pay to see them fight will eat up like catnip. He’ll end up in the ring, it’s only a matter of time, and this place is gonna eat him alive.

Munroe takes the paper scrap, committing the number to memory before he folds it over and tucks it into the jacket of his book.

Archie murmurs a soft “Thanks,” before shuffling back to his side of the cell.

Fights get bad sometimes, that’s just how it goes, but Munroe wasn’t anticipating a fight going quite this poorly.

He’s up against someone he swears can’t be from L&L. He's never found out for sure, but he suspects that they let in some of the younger inmates at the adult prison join the fights from time to time. Keeps things interesting, or some bullshit reason. Sometimes the kids still win and Munroe is close enough to eighteen that he can hold his own most of the time. Just not this particular fight because the guy is 6’4” and inhumanly jacked. Munroe is down by the end of the first round, but the other guy keeps _going at it,_ kicking him while he’s down. The guards are on it in an instant, but it's too late and Munroe’s already woozy from what’s definitely a concussion and it feels like every part of his body is in pain all at once.

In the infirmary, no one bothers to tell him the specifics of what happened or what's wrong with him. They talk over him, like he’s not even there, and he’s sure it’s important, but he’s on so much pain medication he can’t think or feel much of anything. Several things are broken though, of that much he's certain and the warden yells at the nurse about the length of the recovery process. Six weeks is far too long and their spectators will be expecting a champion. Norton will be on a warpath for a new Mad Dog and while Munroe doesn’t dare ask for confirmation, he knows in his bones it's going to be Archie.

The weeks crawl by. One of the nurses finally takes pity on him and brings him his belongings in a giant black trash bag that she dumps unceremoniously onto his bed. His ice pick is unsurprisingly missing from _The Count of Monte Christo_ , but he's not sure what he'd use it for anyway at this point. And while it's better than being alone with his thoughts, things are still mind-numbingly dull, especially since he’s read all of the books a couple times already.

When he’s finally healed up, they rush to schedule him for a fight within the week. Being in that empty pool again sends shivers up his spine, and they get worse when the kid they drag out has a bag over his head and is stumbling the whole way. Munroe can see blood between the fingers he has clenched at his side and he has to turn away, psyching himself up for a fight he doesn’t want to win.

No, not a fight.

It’s an execution. They really expect Munroe to play along, to murder this kid because if he doesn’t, they’ll kill him anyway and punish Munroe for losing. There’s no way out of this.

Munroe turns back around, still not sure what his plan is, and the bag comes off the other kid’s head. He manages to keep his face neutral but the fact is that if he wasn’t going to kill this kid before, he definitely can’t when it’s _Archie_. He has to play along. Buy them time, hope they can figure something that doesn't end with one or both of them dead.

He keeps himself composed and swings wild. Even then, he catches Archie a few times. The other boy isn't even trying to fight back and Munroe wonders how he isn’t dead already if this is how he's been fighting.

“Come on, _hit me,_ ” he urges and Archie just stares at him like he’s crazy, like they have a good alternative to one or both of them ending up dead.

It turns out he does.

In the end, he lets Archie escape and holds off the guards himself, which goes about as well as he anticipated. Maybe slightly worse, since he’s already exhausted from the fight with Archie.

But Archie gets out, at least.

There’s a lot of shouting, after. They can’t quietly disappear him, not as L&L is about to come under scrutiny when Archie and his friends leak the story of an underage fight club to the press. So minus the bumps and bruises from his fight with the guards and a day in solitary, he gets away with it. They even let him have his stuff back. He walks around L&L as the only one with knowledge into what happened to Archie and Joaquin. A few of the other kids in the fight ring are let in on what happened, but it stays just between them. Somehow it doesn’t feel like something to brag about; he doesn’t want the attention and he definitely doesn’t want to be asked to help stage any other escapes.

When L&L get scheduled for the inevitable shut down, rumors fly about where they’re headed next. Thumper starts looking panicky. So do Peter and Baby Teeth. Whatever happens, none of them have high hopes that it will be good. This is Riverdale, after all.

“Hiram Lodge is making sure we all get sent to that new private prison,” Thumper announces in the yard one morning, as the four of them are huddled around a table. “And guess where he's hiring all the new guards he needs from?”

Thumper says it with bravado, like he's proud he gets to be the one who knows something, but the moment it's out, no one has anything to say. They don't make eye contact, but Munroe can _feel_ their panic alongside his own.

He's fine, until he's back in his cell and taking stock of the things he got for winning fights: books and posters and that stupid record player. He flips the table with the record player, listening to it crack against the unforgiving cement floor, then sets to ripping the posters off the wall. Some of them tear in half, but he keeps going without pause. He'll get more, after all, won't he? He'll be doing this forever and he'll have so many more posters and books and stupid trinkets.

He grabs a book from the shelf and flings it across the cell. A slip of paper comes loose from where it was tucked into the book jacket and floats to the floor and Munroe stops cold, staring at it on the floor, numbers visible in the dim lighting. Archie’s number is a blind hope, a last hail Mary, but it's something.

He's not sure what he’s asking for when Archie picks up on the other end of the line, he just needs _someone_ to know what’s happening to him. He wants to ramble to Archie entirely over the phone, but Archie insists on setting up a time to visit him. Munroe almost doesn’t expect him to show up. When he does, he listens as Munroe explains what's about to happen. Archie, the sweet, good-natured boy that he is, promises to get him out. Munroe doesn’t dare hope for it, but Archie’s just so damn sincere and Munroe believes he’ll try.

In a matter of days, Munroe is out of L&L, practically bowling over his grandma and Malcolm in the parking lot as he rushes to meet them.

He meets Archie in a booth at Pop's and finds himself grinning, probably at least in part because Archie is beaming and seems incredibly pleased with himself for managing to get them out. Munroe's not clear on the details of how it all panned out, something about blackmailing a politician. It doesn't matter. He hears himself making plans for the future and it sounds foreign coming out of his own mouth.

Archie promises to help out the other L&L kids, offering a place for them to stay without a second thought. The place turns out to be a gym, which owns. It's a long story. Munroe decides not to question it. He can see the others guys are thrilled as he watches them head off to find space to stay. Archie teases him about sparring and Munroe can't believe he's saying yes and following him willingly into a boxing ring.

He doesn't want to trust anything when it all feels so impossible and fragile, but he decides Archie, at least, is worth trusting.


End file.
